Publish and be Damned (II)
I am seriously thinking about serialising “The Whales of Trincomalee” as an e-book.
I have had absolutely no joy from either publishers (understandable) or agents (who have failed to respond within a 6 week deadline which is extremely unprofessional for people whose only job is to serve as a middleman. I feel vindicated in my belief that I am better off without these parasites).
I have considered POD (publish on demand) because I thought this book will apply to a large target audience with an interest in travel writing, wildlife tourism and personal narrative. It is quite funny as well, in parts. Judging from what is out there, I optimistically reckoned the book would sell a few thousand copies. So although marketing is a drag, I was all set to go with POD when I found that the cheapest option for a standard format paperback (i.e. neither pocket-guide nor exercise book-sized) is £300 upfront for a professionally presented manuscript (i.e. ready-to-roll pdf-format which will take hours, possibly days, of my time). That is in addition to the £6.99 publishing cost for each copy.
Even this might be considered a worthwile investment. After all, I’ll be spending at least that much on stamps and SASEs if I continue to chase agents and publishers, the majority of which have not advanced to 21st century technology as yet (an on-line pitch on your own website is – at best – useless. At worst the agent/editor discovers, to their dismay and amazement, that you are not dealing with them exclusively and goes into a sulk. I know the guys have the wool firmly pulled over their eyes, but you have to play along with their stupid games and strange little rituals…).
£300 can be considered a very small price to pay to get away from all that hassle.
I was pondering this when I borrowed a book by the television and radio broadcaster Jonathan Maitland from the library :” How to have a Number One Single (and what to do if you don’t)”. The man is a media personality with a songwriter brother who managed to get their single into the televised shortlist for the Eurovision song contest and still couldn’t get it signed (Lesson No. 1). He then pressed 3000 CDs – all he needed to get to No.1 in the Republic of Ireland where he appeared on no fewer than seven radio interviews. “That’s in the bag”, I thought: “the fool should have pressed 10 000 copies, just to make sure. I mean what if he only manages to sell 2999 in the first week and it’s a grower?”
He sold 29. About 11 of these, he’d bought himself. Lesson No. 2 – don’t expect anything.
So, that leaves e-publishing. It is the writer’s equivalent of playing free gigs in pubs but if it is a happening place, this is not a bad way to gain exposure and eventual recognition. After all, many famous bands have fond memories of the pubs where they first spread their wings and were discovered.
It is all about finding that happening place.
I have published little stories in various web-zines before I came across BootsNall: Geographic-Explorations Magazine is nice and includes a counter so you can see how many people have looked at your article. I do not understand why it is not more popular. Hackwriters is an award-winning e-zine with its own travel section, Hacktreks, which attracts quality travelwriting, but features can get lost on this huge site. Travelmag is a pretty and well laid-out webzine but is almost completely ignored, a grand total of 4 people have checked out my article during the first month it was featured there (and I presume that includes myself). Even contributors who I have come across elsewhere and who I know sell regularly to print magazines don’t do much better. A little marketing could work wonders for this site because, clearly, the writers believe in it. It just seems the editor doesn’t.
Anyway, when I discovered BootsNall, all that stuff became history. BootsNall gets 10 000 hits a day on average, placing it comfortably in the top 25 000 websites worldwide. To keep with the pub analogy, while many sites out there are snoozers rather than boozers, BootsNall is rocking.
So, “The Whales of Trincomalee” could be converted into a travelogue, if they’ll have it, that is. After all, the manuscript is over 60 000 words long.
It is a little difficult to make that decision because in my mind’s eye I was already touring the country (countries?) on book-tours, lunching at awards ceremonies and being chased by publishers waving plane tickets and letters of asignment to cover wildlife travel (especially whale-watching) around the globe. But who is to say it won’t happen one day? It just won’t happen yet, that much is for sure.
I don’t know. Before I’ll pester anyone about this, I better sleep on it for a few days. Maybe I’ll try one last time. It is a big part of myself to commit, it has taken a lot of work. But in the end of the day, what is more important than building up a readership with a choice where to spend their time on the web that chooses to spend it with you?
Any hands in the air, yet?
Denni